The present invention relates to the field of computer aided design (CAD). More specifically, the present invention relates to computer assistance to a designer working with sheet bodies of geometry pieces of a mechanical design.
A designer may work with a flat sheet of material, such as a flat sheet of steel, to form thin bodies, for example, sheet metal. The forming of the thin bodies may include cutting and deforming the flat sheet of material to a desired shape, in particular, cutting and bending the sheet. Often times, the designer forms these thin bodies as a secondary design concern; the primary design concern being parts of a mechanical design working in conjunction with the thin bodies, such as, brackets to hold parts of the mechanical design.
Complex mechanical designs often include several parts connected together by thin bodies, i.e., brackets. These brackets are often relatively thin with several bends to connect the parts. Additionally, the parts may not all be in the same orientation making the brackets even more complex, for example, one part may be oriented 90 degrees from another.
Manufacturing these brackets involves knowledge of the proper positions of the parts to be connected and the manner in which the designer requires the parts to be connected. An added complexity is that the brackets are often times cut from flat sheets of material, for example, metal, and bent into shape to the specifications of the designer. After bending of the flat sheets, ensuring that the brackets properly position the parts is complex due to addition and/or subtraction of material required to compensate for the bends.
For example, assume a 90-degree bend is required to position a part in a particular orientation. Often times, the particular orientation of the part will have a specific coordinate for the position of the part. If a flat sheet is cut according to a measured length without compensation for the 90-degree bend, i.e., adding material for the bend, the bracket with the bend will not position the part in the proper position because the deformation of the bend consumes some of the material.
A designer may utilize a computer aided design (CAD) application program to create virtual models of sheet bodies, i.e., brackets. Often times, the designer starts by designing parts of a mechanical design, and then, the designer positions the parts in their proper positions. Once the parts have been designed and properly positioned, the designer designs a bracket to hold the parts in their proper positions. Depending upon the complexity of the positions of the parts, designing the bracket may take as much time as designing the parts that the bracket will hold because the designer may be required to specify several criteria for the bracket, such as, but not limited to, the thickness, the bend dimension, intersection areas for the bends, and so forth.
Furthermore, once the bracket is designed, the designer may be required to create a layout for manufacturing the bracket out of a flat sheet of material. During the creation of the layout, the designer is required to take into account such things as thickness of the sheet, bends, the material compensations associated with the bends, and so forth. As a result, even though the designer may be primarily concerned with designing the parts of the mechanical design, designing the bracket to hold the parts in their proper locations would not be as time consuming, or more, as designing the parts.
Thus, a more user friendly approach for designing and working with thin bodies is desired. As will be discussed in more detail below, the present invention achieves this and other desirable objectives, which will be apparent from the disclosure to follow.